Cybersecurity & Privacy

  • June 17, 2024

    Calif. Becomes Last State To Ink Deal Over Blackbaud Breach

    Blackbaud Inc. has agreed to pay $6.75 million to resolve data security claims brought by California's attorney general, who was the only one to sit out a nearly $50 million settlement that the software provider reached last year with every other state over a 2020 ransomware attack that affected thousands of its customers.

  • June 17, 2024

    Judge Cements Decision Clearing Cisco From $2.75B Ruling

    There will be not be a third trial for a cybersecurity startup that has seen its multibillion-dollar patent win turn into nothing at all, a Virginia federal judge has decided, after a second trial found that Cisco wasn't actually infringing its patents.

  • June 17, 2024

    BNSF's $75M BIPA Deal With Truckers Nears Final OK

    A $75 million biometric privacy settlement between BNSF Railway Co. and a class of truck drivers who challenged the railroad's gate-access practices neared final approval Monday, resolving litigation that had been pending in Illinois' state and federal courts.

  • June 17, 2024

    US Surgeon General To Seek Warning Label On Social Media

    U.S. Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy has called on lawmakers to require social media companies to put warnings on their sites that say young people who use them have more mental health issues, according to an opinion article published on Monday.

  • June 17, 2024

    Hacker Facing Rare, Deadly Cancer Avoids Prison Time

    Despite "vehemently" rejecting defense counsel's arguments seeking a more lenient sentence for a cybersecurity contractor facing up to five years in prison for hacking into a hospital's computer systems, a Georgia federal judge nevertheless handed down a two-year house arrest sentence on Monday, citing the defendant's extremely rare and aggressive form of cancer.

  • June 17, 2024

    9th Circ. Says Facebook 'Face Signatures' Not Subject To BIPA

    The Ninth Circuit sided with Meta Platforms on Monday by declining to revive an Illinois resident's proposed class action accusing Facebook of breaking the state's Biometric Information Privacy Act, ruling that the "face signature" at issue isn't protected by the law because it cannot be used to identify someone.

  • June 17, 2024

    Google Says Texas Took Opposing Positions On Key Law

    Google told a Texas federal court the state attorney general's office made arguments in the case accusing the tech giant of monopolizing display advertising technology that directly contradict arguments the state is making in a case challenging the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act.

  • June 17, 2024

    Consulting Firms To Pay $11.3M Over Rent Help Site Breach

    A consulting firm and its subcontractor have agreed to pay $11.3 million to resolve a False Claims Act suit alleging that they allowed the personal data of low-income New Yorkers to be compromised while operating a pandemic-era rental assistance program website.

  • June 14, 2024

    Meta Halts AI Tech Debut In EU After Regulatory Backlash

    Meta Platforms Inc. said Friday that it was putting on hold plans to expand its artificial intelligence offerings to the European market after the Irish privacy regulator raised concerns about the company's efforts to use public content posted on Facebook and Instagram to fuel these models.

  • June 14, 2024

    FCC Settles Probe Into Data Breach At Liberty Latin America

    Liberty Latin America has been slapped with a $100,000 fine for failing to tell the Federal Communications Commission about a data breach that exposed data before the telecom took control of the company.

  • June 14, 2024

    France Offers $750M For Atos' Cyber, Data Assets

    Information technology firm Atos SE said Friday that it has received a nonbinding offer from the French government to buy certain big data and cybersecurity operations at an enterprise value of €700 million ($750 million).

  • June 14, 2024

    X Dodges Porn Filter BIPA Suit For Now

    An Illinois federal judge has thrown out a proposed class action accusing X Corp. of violating the state's biometric privacy law through its use of software to police pornographic images, saying the lead plaintiff failed to allege that the tool can be used to identify specific individuals. 

  • June 14, 2024

    Feds Lob New Charges Over $430M Dark Web Market

    Two owners of an online marketplace known as Empire Market were hit Thursday with additional charges alleging that over a period of years they allowed users worldwide to buy and sell $430 million worth of illegal goods and services.

  • June 14, 2024

    Political Speech Groups Challenge NJ Judicial Privacy Case

    Two voting-integrity groups moved Friday to dismiss federal claims brought against them under New Jersey's Daniel's Law on the grounds that their business of publishing voter registration information is political speech protected by the First Amendment and federal voting rights laws.

  • June 13, 2024

    CFPB's Chopra Sees 'Pressing Need' For Data Protections

    Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Rohit Chopra zeroed in on data usage and privacy during a Thursday hearing with House lawmakers, calling for sharper limits on what financial firms can do with customer data while also seeking to assuage concerns about his agency's plans for data sharing and data broker rules.

  • June 13, 2024

    Vt. Gov. Blocks 'Outlier' Data Privacy Bill With Lawsuit Trigger

    Vermont's governor on Thursday vetoed a legislative proposal that would have given consumers not only new data privacy rights but also the rare opportunity to sue large businesses for certain violations, expressing concerns with the significant "risks" created by the "outlier" measure and urging the Legislature to instead embrace the model adopted by Connecticut and more than a dozen other states.

  • June 13, 2024

    Zoom's $150M Investor Deal Nears OK, But $50K Award Iffy

    A California federal judge indicated Thursday that he'll preliminarily approve Zoom's $150 million deal to end claims it misled investors by stating that it offered end-to-end encryption on its videoconferencing software, but told the plaintiffs' lawyers, "You're going to have to persuade me" to award the lead plaintiff $50,000.

  • June 13, 2024

    KeyBank Borrowers' $6M Data Breach Deal Gets Initial OK

    A Georgia federal judge on Thursday granted preliminary approval to a $6 million settlement deal resolving a class suit over data breaches at KeyBank and other regional lenders and a technology contractor despite objections from a subclass of borrowers — who had previously settled their claims — saying the deal was inequitable.

  • June 13, 2024

    Clearview AI Makes 'Unique' BIPA Deal Tied To Future Value

    Plaintiffs in multidistrict litigation targeting Clearview AI's allegedly unlawful practice of "scraping" internet photos to collect biometric facial data told an Illinois federal judge on Wednesday they have struck a "unique" deal giving the class a stake in the company's future growth.

  • June 13, 2024

    Judge Asks If Amazon Is Doomed To Stay In Wiretapping Suit

    A Washington federal judge questioned Thursday if Amazon Web Services Inc.'s terms of use with Capital One for call center technology "doom" the cloud-computing giant's attempt to avoid a proposed class action accusing it of violating California's wiretapping law.

  • June 13, 2024

    Apple Wants Discovery Hearing Closed In IPhone Class Action

    Apple is asking a California federal judge to close the courtroom during an upcoming discovery hearing in the ongoing antitrust class action it's facing from consumers, arguing that the proceeding is likely to reveal consumer data and billing information that should be kept out of public view.

  • June 13, 2024

    Michigan Supreme Court Curbs Voter Interference Law

    The Michigan Supreme Court narrowed the reach of a law criminalizing voter intimidation Thursday due to fears it could be used to chill political speech, sending prosecutions for robocalls that aimed to suppress Black voter turnout back to an appellate panel for more review.

  • June 13, 2024

    Legal Aid Org Wants DHS Records On Asylum Data Leak

    A legal services provider sued the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in California federal court, looking to force the agency to hand over records on its accidental disclosure of the personally identifiable information of more than 6,200 asylum seekers.

  • June 13, 2024

    GOP Lawmakers Want China Patent Data Amid Tech Pact Talks

    Republican lawmakers are urging the U.S. Commerce Department to provide a full accounting of whether the U.S. government has funded research that resulted in Chinese patents, arguing they need the data to assess potential national security risks as the Biden administration negotiates a new science and technology agreement with China.

  • June 13, 2024

    Meta Facing Complaint Over Plans To Train AI With User Data

    A Norwegian consumer protection group has hit Meta with a legal challenge over its plans to deploy its users' data — including images and posts — to train artificial intelligence models.

Expert Analysis

  • Banks Should Continue To Prep For CFPB Data Rule Rollout

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    Consumer Financial Protection Bureau-supervised banks should not expect industry pressure to delay the rollout of proposed Section 1033 open banking rules, which regulate how consumer financial information flows between financial institutions, and prepare their required data access portals and compliance procedures now, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.

  • Tips For Orgs Facing AI Data Privacy Compliance Challenges

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    Regulators around the world are actively seeking to enforce data privacy and consumer protection laws against companies providing artificial intelligence-related services, raising complex compliance questions in areas like transparency, data minimization, lawfulness of processing, data subject rights and higher risk activities, say attorneys at Hogan Lovells.

  • BIPA's Statutory Exemptions Post-Healthcare Ruling

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    The Illinois Supreme Court's November opinion in Mosby v. Ingalls Memorial Hospital, which held that the Biometric Information Privacy Act's healthcare exemption also applies when information is collected from healthcare workers, is a major win for healthcare defendants that resolves an important question of statutory interpretation, say attorneys at Quinn Emanuel.

  • Enforcement Risk Amid Increased Consumer Data Use

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    While no state has introduced a private right of action for noncompliance with a comprehensive consumer privacy law — except for the California Consumer Privacy Act's data breach provision — organizations and retailers face risk from enforcement actions by state attorneys general and privacy regulators, say attorneys at Dentons.

  • Litigation Inspiration: A Source Of Untapped Fulfillment

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    As increasing numbers of attorneys struggle with stress and mental health issues, business litigators can find protection against burnout by remembering their important role in society — because fulfillment in one’s work isn’t just reserved for public interest lawyers, say Bennett Rawicki and Peter Bigelow at Hilgers Graben.

  • Opinion

    The Problems In Calif. Draft Behavioral Ad Privacy Regs

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    The California Privacy Protection Agency has an opportunity with its automated decision-making technology and profiling rulemaking to harmonize California's regulation of data-driven advertising, but this will be a failure unless several things are changed in its proposed treatment of behavioral advertising, say Alan Friel and Kyle Fath at Squire Patton.

  • Series

    Skiing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    A lifetime of skiing has helped me develop important professional skills, and taught me that embracing challenges with a spirit of adventure can allow lawyers to push boundaries, expand their capabilities and ultimately excel in their careers, says Andrea Przybysz at Tucker Ellis.

  • How Breach Reporting Is Changing For Financial Institutions

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    In May, the Federal Trade Commission's amended Safeguards Rule will extend the data protections that apply to information held by banks to information held by nonbanking financial institutions — and sweep even more broadly in some critical aspects, say Evan Yahng and Kurt Hunt at Dinsmore.

  • High Court Social Media Speech Ruling Could Implicate AI

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    In Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton, the U.S. Supreme Court is considering whether certain state laws can restrict content moderation by social media platforms, but the eventual decision could also provide insight into whether the first amendment protects artificial intelligence speech, say Joseph Meadows and Quyen Dang at GRSM50.

  • Assessing Chinese Cross-Border Data Transfers

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    Jet Deng and Ken Dai at Dacheng unpack the regulatory framework for cross-border data transfers in China, detailing the major systems at play, last year's policy adjustments, and an outlook and practice tips for businesses.

  • Think Like A Lawyer: Forget Everything You Know About IRAC

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    The mode of legal reasoning most students learn in law school, often called “Issue, Rule, Application, Conclusion,” or IRAC, erroneously frames analysis as a separate, discrete step, resulting in disorganized briefs and untold obfuscation — but the fix is pretty simple, says Luke Andrews at Poole Huffman.

  • The Corporate Transparency Act Isn't Dead Yet

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    After an Alabama federal court's ruling last week rendering the Corporate Transparency Act unconstitutional, changes to the law may ultimately be required, but ongoing compliance is still the best course of action for most, says George Singer at Holland & Hart.

  • The Pros And Cons Of Protecting AI As Trade Secrets

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    Despite regulatory trends toward greater transparency of artificial intelligence models, federal policy acknowledges, and perhaps endorses, trade secret protection for AI information, but there are still hurdles in keeping AI information a secret, say Jennifer Maisel and Andrew Stewart at Rothwell Figg.

  • Conn. Data Privacy Enforcement Takeaways For Cos.

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    In light of the Connecticut attorney general's recently released report on its enforcement of the Connecticut Data Privacy Act, which focuses on companies' privacy policies, protections of sensitive data and more, businesses can expect increased enforcement scrutiny — especially in areas that are the subject of consumer complaints, say Paul Pittman and Abdul Hafiz at White & Case.

  • How Firms Can Ensure Associate Gender Parity Lasts

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    Among associates, women now outnumber men for the first time, but progress toward gender equality at the top of the legal profession remains glacially slow, and firms must implement time-tested solutions to ensure associates’ gender parity lasts throughout their careers, say Kelly Culhane and Nicole Joseph at Culhane Meadows.

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